Wild cards: "Tarzan of the apes" & "The Jungle book"

I struggled with how to incorporate the two “Joker” cards into my deck. I tried to think of Joker or Fool archetypes in fairy tales, I contemplated dropping the “Joker” idea all together and instead illustrating some of the fairy tale authors and collectors, and I considered just sticking to the typical Joker symbols and illustrating my version of the court jesters that we are familiar with.  Finally, I settled on the idea of getting rid of the Joker title completely,and I chose two stories which featured feral, untamed or “wild” characters; I decided to make them “Wild” cards instead (which is the only way I’ve ever used a Joker in a card game anyway). I chose The Jungle Book and Tarzan to illustrate my “Wilds” and I’m happy that I was able to incorporate these two iconic stories from my childhood into the deck. “Tarzan of the Apes” was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs and published in 1914.  “The Jungle Book” is a series of stories from 1894 written by Rudyard Kipling.

My first wild card depicts John Clayton II (Tarzan, which means “white skin” in ape language) himself. Raised by apes, cheated out of his inheritance, enamoured with the first woman of his kind he ever laid eyes on, and eventually “crowned” king of the apes. Tarzan is pictured with the love of his life, Jane, and Kerchak the alpha ape he defeats to earn his royal simian title.
 
My second wild card depicts Mowgli, Baloo, Bagheera, Shere Khan, Kaa and Akela. A sweet coming of age tale set in the Indian jungle. I was very surprised to learn that some of the names of the characters are Hindi, Persian or Punjabi words for the type of animal they are. Baloo means “bear” and Shere Khan means “tiger king”. I got a little caught up in reading this list of meanings and origins of names from the book:
https://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/readers-guide/rg_junglebook_names.htm